


Fey

by Newtonsapple (Gaberoonius)



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dreams, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, References to Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quotations, platonic or slash as you prefer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 09:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaberoonius/pseuds/Newtonsapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em><strong>Fey</strong>, adjective: 1. strange or otherworldly; magical or fairy-like. 2. clairvoyant; possessing second sight. 3. doomed; on the verge of sudden or violent death. noun: a premonition of death.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>A ghost story, a lucid dream, a false awakening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fey

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this fandom suddenly sunk its teeth into me. Happened across a fic about these two in someone's faves a few days ago, thought "I vaguely remember liking that movie; I should watch it again," and now here I am. Carpe Diem!

When he got back to their dorm room after the play, Todd couldn’t sleep. There had been something about the look in Neil’s eyes as his father dragged him from the theater that still bothered Todd. It was probably just anxiety and his imagination, but he couldn’t help feeling a sense of foreboding as that moment kept repeating itself in his mind’s eye for what felt like hours, like some awful movie. He knew he was obsessing. The empty bed on the other side of the room certainly didn’t help.

Yet at some point he must have fallen asleep, because now he finds himself in the cave without having gotten there, and he feels his friends around him without really seeing their faces. It’s almost like a normal Society meeting (if their meetings could ever be described as “normal”) except that Todd himself is holding Five Centuries of Verse in his hands and reading the invocation aloud which is something he would never do—Neil usually does that—and he knows with the illogical certainty of dreams that Neil is not at the meeting.

As Todd reaches the end of the quote he feels something like deja vu, or maybe its opposite; something is strange, wrong, out of place. “…And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived,” he reads, and thinks he hears a more vibrant and confident voice reciting the lines along with him—even though a moment ago he was sure that Neil was missing, that his absence was the one thing that felt off about the meeting…

_and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived_

For a moment all Todd can see is the title page of the book, but then in a flash he remembers Charlie lounging in an armchair lit by warm lamplight, and again Mr. Keating’s voice reminds them, “Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bones!”

_choking on the bones_

And then he’s awake again—he thinks—sitting on the edge of his bed. Outside their window he can see snowflakes drifting and catching the moonlight, and he remembers how much he loves the way fresh snow muffles sound. Everything is quieter in the snow. He has space to think. It’s beautiful. He wonders what Neil is thinking about right now; whether he’s looking at the same snow from the windows at his parents’ house.

But suddenly Neil is right there, perched on top of the radiator as though he’s been there all along. He’s still in costume. Puck’s crown of twigs is dusted with snow that’s just starting to melt. He stares out at the moon with a fey look on his face, the wicked, impish smile he always gets when he’s planning something mischievous—

“Neil?” Todd’s voice sticks in his throat, comes out as a croaky whisper. Besides, he doesn’t want to wake anyone else, doesn’t even know what time it is. “I thought…You went back to your parents house…Wha- what are you doing here?”

Neil doesn’t answer, but he turns to look at Todd. He looks sad now, but not broken like he did when he got into his father’s car. Not desperate, just melancholy. The hint of mischief is still there, so it’s almost happy and sad at the same time, and a little nostalgic, and maybe even relieved? Todd thinks there’s a whole poem contained in Neil’s face in that instant, but he knows that no matter how many drafts of it he writes there will always be some core piece of it that he’ll never be able to articulate. Something he might only be able to understand without words.

He opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, is something wrong, but Neil is already speaking. It’s part of one of Puck’s speeches, from the last scene of the play:

"Now it is the time of night  
That the graves, all gaping wide,  
Every one lets forth his sprite,  
In the church-way paths to glide:  
And we fairies, that do run  
By the triple Hecate’s team,  
From the presence of the sun,  
Following darkness like a dream,  
Now are frolic; not a mouse  
Shall disturb this hallow’d house:  
I am sent with broom before,  
To sweep the dust behind the door." 

Neil’s voice is still echoing through the hallowed halls, but Todd is staring out the window at the snow and there’s no one there…

"Todd..." 

And this must not have been real because now he feels a hand shaking his shoulder and the world flips over as he finds himself waking up in bed when he thought he was already awake. But that wasn’t real because this is real. He’s still tired. He tries to roll over and pull the blankets back over his head.

“Todd!” The whisper again, more urgent—he looks up and it’s Charlie. Or it’s Charlie again, because Charlie was there earlier, in his dream, when Keating warned them about choking on the bones—

 _choking choking on the bones am I choking I can’t breathe something’s wrong_ he thinks. _Something is wrong._

There’s a tear dripping down Charlie’s cheek. _The great Nuwanda has shed a tear!_ Something is definitely wrong.

Charlie almost chokes on the words—

“Neil’s… dead.”

**Author's Note:**

> While this is meant to be complete as-is, I have a few vague ideas in the same vein, so it might become a series of one-shots or different versions of the same basic concept, or something. Let me know in comments if you think that would be interesting! There are so many Shakespearian ghosts to explore... ;)
> 
> The tense shift was an accident in the first draft, but when I typed it up I shifted it to a place where I thought it might work intentionally. If you feel like commenting, I'd love to know if it makes sense, and any other inconsistencies you might find or anything that confuses you. I tried to capture the feeling of a semi-lucid dream, plus that thing when you hear a real sound and you think it's part of your dream, plus an echo effect that would make much more sense performed than written, plus a bit of that panicked mental voice. No beta (but I think I might actually be a better editor than I am a fiction writer, so *cough*anyoneneedabetareader?*coughcough*). 
> 
> Citation-wise, the Puck lines come from his speech beginning with "Now the hungry lion roars," from Act V Scene 2 of _Midsummer_. This piece was partly inspired by suddenly remembering the bit about the graves letting forth their sprites, which seemed apropos; also, I loved how "If we shadows have offended" was used in the movie, so it was fun to try my hand at adding another layer of meaning to a Shakespeare quote! Incidentally, _Midsummer_ has become one of my least favorite Shakespeare plays (I got sick of it after acting in 3 or 4 different productions!), but even so, there are bits of it that I can't help but love, including the last couplet of that speech: "I am sent with broom before/To sweep the dust behind the door." After all their vengeful bickering, mad capers, and amoral manipulation of the humans, the fairies become rather soft and gentle at the end, and after waxing poetic about wolves and lions and ghosts, Puck has this very mundane task. Even this morning when inspiration struck, I wasn't sure I fully understood the lines, so I did a little googling for interpretations to consider, and found [this lovely blog post](http://shakespeare147.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-am-sent-with-broom-before-to-sweep.html), which offered the hypothesis that sweeping the dust behind the door is a kind of temporary fix, distracting us from the imperfections of the (mostly) neat resolution. Although it's only one possible reading, that's when I knew I'd picked the right quote, because I think that kind of "sweeping behind the door" (or under the rug, really) is exactly what the school administration wants to do at the end of _Dead Poets_ ; cover things up and pretend everything is fine in that supremely unsatisfying way (SO 1950's, amiright?). 
> 
> I considered using that quote for the title but then I was reminded of the word "fey" while looking up "mischievous" in the thesaurus, and wow, was that ever a perfect fit for this scenario. I cobbled together the relevant definitions from a few different online sources (mostly Oxford American and Wiktionary).
> 
> And since I've expounded this long, I may as well add a link on [false awakenings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_awakening) in case you're curious.
> 
> Oh, and if you have access to JSTOR, there's also this! [Why Does Puck Sweep?](http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.sfpl.org/stable/3648647?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=why&searchText=does&searchText=puck&searchText=sweep&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dwhy%2Bdoes%2Bpuck%2Bsweep%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) Which I haven't actually read yet.


End file.
